Essay: A Capitalist's Guide to Capital Gains

Capitalist's Guide to Capital Gains

Let's not even talk about fairness. Almost no one disputes that most of the benefit of the proposed tax break for capital gains -- profits from the sale of investment assets such as stocks and real estate -- would go to people with incomes of more than $200,000 a year, or that the average person in that pleasant category would save $25,000 a year in taxes. The dispute is whether this break (which has passed the House and is currently stalled in the Senate) would be so good for the economy that we would all prosper from it, making resistance on...